I kinda fucked the order of things, pretty bad. Just imagine that the field trip to the forest was pushed back due to Torga being an idiot and the staff hopping through hoops to try and make it seem like he isn't. I mean that INT isn't exactly rising fast.

Also, yes, I'm aware that there was only the mention of going to Forever Fall in the last two chapters titled "Forever Fall". Consider it all leading up to this, the FIRST DUNGEON.

The temple itself was kind of impressive, reminding me - not without a pang of nostalgia - of Bleak Falls Barrow. Same stone arches, same raised platform, same entrance into a cliffside. The only notable architectural difference was that these stones were more white than the dark stone found in construction of Nordic burial grounds.

Richards set us down on the raised platform. Velvet told him to take up a holding pattern, which I later learned was just him flying in circles ready to swoop down at any moment.

"Listen up," I call, "it is currently…. 9:45. That means we have an hour and fifteen minutes until curfew. With luck, we'll finish this and get back in time for a decent night's rest. If not, well, oops."

"Might I suggest we head inside, then?" Velvet said with a twitch of her ears. "The Grimm around here haven't started moving towards us yet but it will only be a matter of time."

Nora rounded on her with eyes wide. "No way, you can tell?"

The rabbit-girl twitched her ears again. "You think these giant ears are just for show? I can hear the lyrics of music people play through their headphones. You'd actually be surprised sometimes what people listen to." She said with a light laugh.

"I'm sure." I cut in. "Now, be prepared. From what I know, this place is dangerous. When we enter any hallways, I'll go first to check for traps. Pyrrha, I want you behind me; Any traps I miss will likely be metal-based, so I'll need you to do what you can. Ren, I want you in the middle. No offense, but because I said so. Nora, you follow behind him. Velvet, I want you in the back. Your ears give us the best chance of reacting in time if something tries to sneak up on us."

I got wide-eyed stares. Pyrrha was the one to speak up. "Um… Torga? Just how dangerous do you expect this to be?"

I looked at her with utter certainty in my eyes. "I always walk into temples, burial sites, and caves expecting the very worst. From our experience with that Deathstalker, I figured you'd understand."

She opened her mouth, paused, closed it, then nodded. "Fair."

"Good. Now, if and when we come across any large areas, our goal will be to funnel them into groups."

"Who?" Velvet asked.

"Whatever's in there. As I was saying, my shouts can take care of most groups easily, or at least push them back for us to have a little breathing room. In that case, I want Nora and Pyrrha with me in the front, Ren in the middle to be our floater, and Velvet watching for ambushes. As tends to happen, at the end there will be a much stronger enemy. Stay away from it's weapon as they tend to be enchanted and can hit like a mammoth. Dodge, don't parry, and as a general rule, if you can hit him and he can't hit you-"

"You automatically win." Ren finished for me.

I took a deep breath in, then exhaled slowly. "Right. Everyone ready? Last chance to back out."

Though when I looked into the eyes of my companions, I saw nothing but determination, and a little bit of irritation from Velvet.

"Let's move."

We steadily made our way to the large wooden door. It opened, silently. I walked in, seeing a hallway that led straight to a set of stairs that in turn led down into the darkness. I pulled a torch out of my Inventory and used a quick application of Aura Enhancement to light my sword on fire. Whenever I used a skill that required AP, my Dust Battery was slightly depleted. Regardless, I had around 30 more uses left before that fire Dust that Roman threw at me was depleted. As I would be the one best suited for the torch being, you know, first in line, I dropped the shield back into my Inventory.

I used my sword to light the torch, then cut off the skill. As soon as Velvet walked through the door, though, the door was shut. It didn't swing shut, or slam. One moment it was open and we could see outside, and the next it was closed and barred over with a plank that hadn't been there before.

"Try the door." I said in a low voice. In caves like this, whispers carried much further than simply lowering your voice.

Velvet tried to move the plank, but it didn't budge. Nora lined up a shot with her hammer, but I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "We can break out if we need to. Until then, we go forwards.

She looked to her hammer, then back at the door, then to me with a pleading look in her eyes which I have long since learned to not let affect me. The Gamer's Mind didn't hurt at all. After a couple seconds she shrugged, then shipped her beast of a hammer away.

I walked past Pyrrha and Ren, and took the first steps down. Everything vanished, then I appeared in a small room with two hallways branching out.

The floors were a hard packed dirt with bits of rock sticking out. The walls were disarming, made of the same natural looking rock, but clearly not natural when it formed a room with four distinct, opposite corners. Upwards, all I could see was the walls continuing onwards up into the shadows. The hallways, from what I could see, were much of the same.

B1F, Forest Fall Temple.

You have been separated from your group! Form a party to travel between floors together!

I cursed, spouting off a few choice words under my breath. "Party Options."

Add Party Member

Manage Party

Settings

"Add Party Member"

Who would you like to add?

"Pyrrha Nikos." I said clearly.

Invite sent! Would you like to invite another?

"Lie Ren."

Invite sent! Would you like to invite another?

"Nora Valkyrie."

Invite sent! Would you like to invite another?

Shit, what was her last na- right. "Velvet Scarlatina."

Invite sent! Party full!

I closed the menus and glanced at my map. Rather than everything being illuminated for me already, all I saw was the room I was in, and the beginnings of the two hallways. I frowned at that, and even more when I saw green dots where there was allegedly nothing there. I knew that blue represented allies, and red represented enemies, while white stood for neutral.

I had never before seen green. One of them was making its way towards me, from the hallway on the east side of the room. I raised my sword, preparing for anything, though it was simply Ren that came sprinting out of the hall. He was panting.

He was panting.

"Ren, what happened?"

"I don't know! Everything went dark, then I was getting the shit beaten out of me from everywhere! I saw the light and ran for it, and here you are. Where are we, Torga? This isn't the temple!" He was panicking now, eyes shooting all around the admittedly dark room. I slapped him across the face.

"We're here now, and I have a way to find the others. Keep your shit together, they're probably more in the dark than we are and scared to boot. If there's Grimm in here.." I trailed off.

He took a deep breath after rubbing his cheek. His eyes closed, and when he exhaled and opened them, it was with the serenity I had come to find common with him, and I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding.

"Lead the way."

We found our first enemy before anyone else. We travelled down the western hallway, and when I came out into the room my map filled it out and in the southwest corner of that room was a red dot. I looked, and saw something familiar.

Undead Skeleton

LVL 3

An unarmed skeleton. I let out a laugh, then decapitated it when it rushed us with barely more than a wave of my sword. It was good to see that they were equally weak here as they were in my world. Ren was slightly more disturbed.

"Was that a-"

"Yes, a human skeleton, reanimated by magic and forced to eke out the rest of its meagre existence in the thrall of the original mage."

"Poor… it." He still looked pale.

"I would think not." I explained. "There's no trace of humanity left in a skeleton that weak, other than the shape of course. It was reanimated using a mere petty soul, nothing worth worrying over."

"Every soul is worth it."

"That's where you're wrong. Sure, your world may have done more towards weaponizing your own soul, but I can guarantee you that my world is more full of necromancers and their evil magic. This thing?" I gestured at the heap of bones. "Probably the soul of a bird or a squirrel that I just set free."

"How the hell can you quantify a soul?" He looked slightly less pale, though still slightly shaken. I noticed he looked at me rather than the remains. "I was taught that life is life, and the only thing worth killing is the Grimm."

"I was taught that if something tries to kill you and yours, you kill it first. Sometimes you need to put safety ahead of principle. The others are waiting, c'mon." He looked like he had more to say on the subject, but agreed and followed. He didn't look back.

We found Nora soon after, spinning in circles with her hammer held out. I saw the decaying corpse of a Grimm, and piles of bones against the walls. Something felt off about this place, but with Nora back I have to admit my spirit got a little bit lighter. Ren certainly had a weight lifted from his shoulders, and became as calm as ever. We headed north from Nora's room, and made our way through the halls.

Velvet was the next dot, though we heard her long before we saw her, and we saw her from quite a distance. When we finally did round the corner, she was holding… I couldn't describe it at the time, but I was later told it was a hard-light construct in the shape of a minigun. And from the only other entrance to Velvet's room, a constant swarm of skeletons poured.

I rushed in, taking a stance by her side as Nora took the other side, firing grenades into the horde. Ren fired constantly from his pistols.

"Nice of you to show up!" She called in her slightly Cyrodiilian accent, struggle to be heard over the steady roar of her gun. "It was dark in here!"

"Glad to know I brightened your mood then!"

"Good pun, T!" Nora called.

"They aren't stopping, Torga!"

"Means the next room is probably full of them, which means we need to fight our way through!"

"We have the tactical advantage, a chokepoint!" Velvet countered.

"Yea? Well then stay here, but I'm taking me and my torch and going to go get Pyrrha who is straight down that hall and right at the turn."

She didn't counter that time.

"Nora, get me a path to that intersection!" I called.

"On it!" She shifted Magnhild to it's hammer form and charged down the hallway into the skeletons. Velvet let her minigun die down, as it crumbled into nothing. When I looked back to the hallway, Nora was ferociously beating back the skeletons and holding the intersection.

I charged to meet her, shoved her aside, and unleashed my fury.

"FUS RO DAH!"

I followed closely behind the wave of force as it shattered our foes on impact. Quite a lot of them, as a storm of bones erupted into the next room. What I saw in there made me pause for a brief second.

From five different unmarked gravestones, skeletons were being thrown out at a furious pace. There was nobody raising them. Nobody digging up the bones. Just skeletons, climbing from graves, one after another.

Pyrrha was floating high above the room, standing on her shield. Sweat dripped from her brow. Luckily my shout hit the group directly beneath her, and she dropped from her spot as the room lit up and we entered. I ran over to her side as we faced a brief lull in the onslaught of opponents.

"This is new." Pyrrha muttered nonchalantly as she shifted her weapon to rifle form and began taking out the skeletons with quick, accurate shots.

"Destroy the gravestones!" I called out, confident that my order would be completed quickly as I watched Pyrrha's back. She was still slightly winded from the effort of keeping herself aloft for that long.

Nora took a total of 3 seconds to both destroy the remaining gravestones and what skeletons still lived. I took a couple of breaths, waiting for something else to jump out, but nothing happened. A skeleton ran from a passage to the south, but Ren utterly destroyed it with a palm strike. 5 seconds later, another one came, and he killed it just as spectacularly.

"Alright, everyone watch a hallway. Ren, south, Pyrrha, center and take a breather. Nora, you watch north and east, Velvet, you take west." They leapt to their positions, all business. I slapped myself mentally for ever assuming that they would be in more danger than me in here.

I whipped out my scroll, about to make a call to try and get more information on dungeons, but I had no service. None of us did.

"So… any ideas?"

It had been about ten minutes, and the only thing that happened was the regular skeleton running at us silently while Ren killed it. He had gotten bored about 2 minutes in and had started coming up with interesting ways to kill them. Now, he was tossing skulls at Nora and she was hitting them with her hammer down the hall, the sound of shattering skeletons echoed back so I didn't really care so long as the job got done.

"Hey Torga?"

"Yes Ren?"

"If I were a gambling man, I would bet you 100 lien that there's just one more gravestone down that way. If we destroy it, we'll probably get some peace and quiet."

"Sure. Take Nora and Velvet with you." I said as I tossed him the torch. "Remember, stick together and don't let that go out."

"How are we going to see?" Pyrrha asked. "And why aren't we going with them?"

I lit my sword on fire again, bringing the Dust Battery down to 29. These enemies hadn't even been worth a Power Strike yet. "Just call it a veterans intuition. Try to hurry, Ren."

"You won't even notice we were gone." He said, taking off down the tunnel with the two girls in two. I waited a little bit before turning to Pyrrha.

"Are…" I sighed, not too good at this but taking my team's advice to heart regardless. "Are you alright?"

She glanced at me, then back to the two halls she had decided to watch. "I'll hold together."

"If it helps, their souls have already moved on." I reassured, though I no longer knew if that was true. For all I knew, these could be human souls being born just in time for us to kill them. They'd started when we got into the dungeon, that much was clear. If they'd been going any longer we would have had to wade through a sea of bones to get anywhere, so these were purpose-made skeletons.

"It does."

B1F Clear!

I let a small grin pop onto my face for a brief second, before I was shocked by the appearance of a downwards leading staircase in the corner of the room. I swallowed, then pointed it out to Pyrrha, who seemed startled at seeing it. "I don't like this place, Torga. I don't like it at all." Her voice sounded strained.

"We'll get through. Remind me to tell you about the time I fought an entire coven of necromancers trying to summon the Wolf Queen, and this will seem like… well, a walk in the park."

"A walk in the park sounds nice." She said, the edge still creeping into her words.

"Sounds good, we'll have a nice relaxing day tomorrow to make up for the craziness tonight. I'll pay for food."

Pyrrha chuckled. "Don't let Nora hear you say that."

"Too late, he's committed!" She burst out as they walked back into our room. I let the fire die off of my sword and accepted the torch that Ren gave back to me, tossing him a 100L card. His reflexes wouldn't allow him to do anything but catch it.

He looked at me with an odd face. I shrugged. "You were right." He shrugged back; truly, entire songs can be written that do not convey the range of emotions that man can fit into a shrug. I was impressed.

"That's new." Velvet noted the new staircase.

"This floor is clear. Now is the time to take a rest, if you want. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that this leads down to the next floor."

"Thank you for your observation." Velvet teased with a giggle.

"You're welcome." I say flatly, not rising to the bait. "You all accepted the Party invite, so when we go down these stairs we should stay together. I say we go down in 2 minutes. I don't know about you guys but I want this over and done with as soon as possible, and if it's just 25 floors of skeletons, it will get boring real fast."

The first five floors were all skeletons. I'm not even sure where Nora had found a Grimm on the first floor but that was the only one that we saw until the sixth floor. On the plus side, I was levelling up my offensive skills like crazy.

It became routine after the second floor. Pyrrha and Ren would take the lead, shooting out any attackers before they could reach us. Ren and I swapped spots when they got closer, and I ended up creating a new skill.

Lash (Active: 5MP) LVL:1

Using a whip you cause damage and a bleeding wound.

Attack 25%

Adds Status Effect 'Bleeding(Light)'

Of course, skeletons couldn't really bleed, per-say, but the ability to attack with my harpoon without having to fire it off or retract it was a huge help. I quickly burnt through the Dust Battery, though at the 6th floor torches began to line the walls so I put mine back into my inventory and took my shield back out.

The sixth floor was home to just Ursa. We located 3 Ursa Minor spawn points, as Ren called them, then an Ursa Major clawed its way out of the ground.

I roasted it alive with my Thu'um.

We moved on.

The seventh floor was much the same, though there was a Beowolf spawn in that one.

Things changed when we got to what should have been the tenth floor.

We landed in a square room with upwards leading stairs at one side, downwards stairs at the other, and a bonfire in the middle with benches lined around the outside. It wasn't particularly cold, but the scene was so… comforting, and inviting, I couldn't help but take a seat. As I did so…

You have reached a Rest Area! HP AP fully restored! Status returned to 'Normal'!

You have come upon your first Rest Area! Here you and your party can take time to distribute status points, trade items, or even retreat from the dungeon.

WARNING! The next floor is the Boss Room. Once you enter, you cannot leave until the Boss is defeated. Should you retreat, all XP, Lien, and Loot will be returned to the Dungeon.

"Torga? What's the scoop?" Nora asked me as she sat down. "Ooohhh that feels nice. Really nice."

Pyrrha took a seat next to me, sighing in relief as she did so. "I don't know where we are but it's killed my headache. I approve."

I explained as Ren and Velvet took a seat. "It appears we're close to the end. This is a rest area, and apparently our Aura has been restored. Those stairs" I gestured to the upwards staircase, "will take us out of here, while the ones down will lead us to the boss. Once we beat the boss, we've officially cleared the temple and can go back home. Or, we can retreat, forfeit all of the rewards, and go sleep now. Keep in mind that we could come back during the field trip and clear it when we're stronger."

"We're not likely to make as drastic of improvements as you, Torga." Ren noted. "So far hasn't been easy, but it also hasn't been harder than either of our initiations."

"He's right." said the hammer maiden. "I feel like we've just warmed up. Do you know what we'll be Hunting down there?"

"No clue, but I'm confident we can handle it. You're talking to a certified hero, here." I said with a grin.

"Oh, and modest too?" Velvet prodded.

"And you, Pyr-" I cut myself off. "Partner?"

Her head whipped around so fast I think that if she wasn't in this rest area, she may have given herself whiplash. "Me?"

I looked at her seriously. "Yes, you. What do you think of all this?"

She was smiling, though the gravity of it faded as she rested her chin in a hand. "This place isn't natural. It feels wrong. It feels like we shouldn't be here." She took a deep breath. "It's felt that way for the past 10 floors. Torga, you've led us through so far. If you say we can do another floor, then I'm in."

"Velvet?"

"I'm confused and lost, but it's Ursa and Beowolves, for Pete's sake. This is nothing. Wait until you actually go out Hunting." She laughed. "Sure, came this far didn't we?"

I nodded. "It's settled. Now, I won't let my team go in there on an empty stomach."

I opened my inventory and pulled out a box. Nora's eyes lit up, and I pulled the box away before she could dare take it. "We have to share, okay? I only have the one."

I opened it up to reveal the greatest food I've encountered since I got to this world. A wonderful, steaming hot pepperoni pizza.

"Where do you keep pulling this stuff from? First the torch, then your shield, and now a fresh pizza?"

Ren waved off Velvets questioning for me. "He's weird like that."

"Damn straight." I said, grabbing a slice and stuffing it in my mouth as I passed the box on. Pyrrha passed it along, Nora grabbed 5 slices, 3 of which were gone almost instantly before Ren nudged her side and she attempted a muffled thanks, passing it to him. He took a slice, and Velvet took 3. The box got passed back to me, 3 slices remaining. I nudged Pyrrha.

"Not hungry?" I asked.

"I.. can't eat that."

"Hm? Why not?"

"I have to abide by a strict diet. My personal trainer always told me that the more grease I consume, the more likely victory is to slip through my fingers."

Everyone around me seemed to just accept this as a valid reason. I looked at her as if she was mental. "Eat the slice."

"I can't."

"No, you won't."

"I want to, I just can't."

"Nobody's stopping you. It's fantastic, promise."

"I'm sure it is."

I take out another slice and take a slow bite. "Mmmm. Tastes like victory to me."

"That's wonderful." She seemed slightly irritated, so I dropped it. Not the topic, the slice of pizza, into the fire. Nora looked personally offended, so I tossed her the rest of the box which was soon devoured. The slices, not the box, though I didn't doubt she could have eaten that too. I used my recently freed hands to equip my cloak. I would equip the goggles if it seemed like we would have the drop on our opponent, but they were too disorienting to use in a fight for now.

"Alright, let's go kill this boss so Pyrrha can drink her milk and eat rabbit food." I said, standing.

"Excuse me?" Velvet said flatly.

"I have no excuse." I replied. "I was referring to plants."

That being said, I launched myself down the stairs. As soon as I appeared in the final floor, the rest of them appeared at my back.

"We're going to have a talk about that rabbit food thing, Torga." Velvet promised as we looked around. This, here, was finally something that resembled a temple. It was a large open room, floors flat, man-made stone. In a way it reminded me of the Dwemer ruins, with the high ceiling and carved stone pillars, but that was where the similarities ended.

We could all see, but there was no source of light. No torches, no fires, nothing, it was just… light. The same light coloured stone as we saw outside was present, and on the far wall, an intricate mural was placed. I couldn't see the details from over where we entered the floor.

"Behind me." I said. "Let's go check out that mural."

"I hear a King Taijitu." Velvet whispered. "I can't pin its position."

"Keep an ear out." I said lowly, head darting too look in all directions. All I saw was the white floor stretch on for about 100 meters, then fade into shadows like the roof of the last 10 floors did. "Take the middle, everyone else make a square around her. I want eyes out in every direction." They did as asked. "At least it's just a snake." I muttered as we moved closer to the mural.

When we approached, I saw that it was, surprisingly, a picture of a giant two-headed snake, wearing a crown. Arrayed around it were various groups of people, all attempting to kill it with different methods. Nets, spears, guns, swords, a large explosion that I assumed was a bomb.

Ren traced a finger across the form of the snake, and my uneasiness grew. As soon as his finger reached the eye on the black head, well…

Sense Bloodlust has levelled up! Sense Bloodlust has levelled up! Sense Bloodlust has levelled up! Sense Bloodlust has levelled up! Sense Bloodlust has levelled up! Sense Bloodlust has levelled up!

I looked up just in time to see a white head twice the size of my body, jaws open large enough to take a car in, falling from the sky straight at us.

"Scatter!" I shouted, turning right around and sprinting two steps before leaping away. I briefly lost track of my team's position. I was a tad distracted, anyways.

King Taijitu

LVL60

King of Kings

Queen Taijitu

LVL60

Queen of Queens

I swallowed in slight fear, pausing for a second before realizing this was nowhere near as bad as two dragons. As the black head, the King, spit a glob of what I discovered to be acid at me, I noted that at least it didn't have wings.

Not to mention the black head getting a hammer to the side of the face courtesy of our favourite orange-haired Huntress. Ren and Pyrrha were keeping the Queen busy, well Velvet stood back with a camera, snapping pictures.

I dodged off to the side just as I almost got bitten in two. "Not the time, Velvet!"

"Give me two more minutes, and I can kill this thing, I swear!"

"We may not have that long, Vel!"

"Just trust me!"

I growled in my throat, unhappy.

"Fine!" I rolled across the ground, narrowly avoiding a headbutt the size of a refrigerator. I wasn't fast enough.

The beast opened it's jaws wide and tore into me, and I briefly wanted to puke as my torso was punctured through by it's massive fang, then I found myself falling from it's mouth.

You have been Poisoned! Duration:5 seconds.

"Shit." I muttered, watching my HP fall slowly. It had been at full, as I had been taking damage to my easily recoverable AP, but it was still falling at an alarming rate, on top of the damage from being bitten in twain. By the time I had dodged another couple of attacks and shot a couple of Air Slashes, the poison had worn off leaving me with a third of my health and a new skill title Poison Resistence. I couldn't get hit again. I dropped my two shout points carefully, then called to my team.

"Nora, Pyrrha, Thunderbird! Ren, Flying Sawblade!"

We lined up, taking a brief respite as the beast before us rose to its full height and roared it's challenge. I held out my arm for Ren to grab onto, then roared my own challenge back.

"WULD NAH!"

At the end of my rush, Ren held on briefly to achieve rotation even as I yanked my arm back, and soon he was flying at the head of the white one in a whirl of blades. He struck, at least 20 times with a second, before planting a foot and jumping back to me. The white head followed close behind. Ren jumped back out of range, and I swung my sword down with a mighty overhand blow, amplified by Power Strike. It cut deep, causing the beast to recoil, though the usual red mark I saw when a Grimm was injured quickly shrunk to nothing and it let out another roar.

It lunged at me once more, and I jumped into the air with a touch of Featherweight, firing my harpoon into the base of its neck and clicking the reel-in button as I let go. "Nora, Nailgun!"

She slammed her hammer down onto the black head, sending herself flying high into the air and the snakes head onto Pyrrha's raised javelin. It roared with pain. Nora, to her credit, aimed perfectly, slamming down onto my sword with so much power, my weapon shattered as it flew into what passed for the white Queen's skull. My heart dropped as I was left with only a shield, but even that would be useful as the Queen lunged at me again. I bashed its head off to my right as I spun left, jumping into the air to avoid a retaliatory headbutt and striking with an Air Slash that I launched with my shield.

"Ready, line them up!" Velvet called out.

"All you, Pyrrha!"

Pyrrha, in the greatest display I'd seen from her so far, took a hold of the shattered pieces of sword within the Queens skull, and used it to bring that head in line with the black one. It was only for around half a second, but holy shit did Velvet move.

In what look like the blink of an eye, a hard-light construction of Pyrrha's spear formed in her hands. She lined up and threw with Pyrrha's exact stance, then formed Nora's hammer, and gathered her breath.

My eyes went wide and jaw dropped when she uttered two words that ended the fight.

"WULD NAH!"

She flew forward with the fury of a storm, flipping at the last moment to strike her rendition of Pyrrha's weapon straight through the King's dark head and halfway into the Queen's. The King dropped dead immediately. The queen screeched in pain and writhed as the dragons did. I knew a perfect way to finish her, and with a leap I landed in front of her face. She screeched once more, roaring defiance to my face.

"Heh, you think your breath stinks now?"

"YOL TOOR!"

Not just a stream of fire came from me; Nay, I unleashed an inferno. A fiery onslaught of doom and destiny, my soul personified. The flames that came could not possibly have come from my physical throat, not without consuming my whole body. This shout was as much about contending your will against the ever-consuming flames of Akatosh, as it was directing such a force towards your enemies. I directed the force right down that motherfucker's throat.

The soulless one was forsaken this day, and the Queen died a horrible, painful death, though short.

I, Torga the only Dragonborn this world has ever seen, finally truly smiled.

We appeared back on the raised platform outside. I whirled 'round on Velvet, ignoring the four level up windows.

"First, cool shit. Second," I grabbed her by the throat and held her up in the air. "Who in the fuck are you and how are you able to use the Thu'um?!"

I heard a howl from the forest around us, and my eyes went wide as I realized what I was doing, immediately letting her go before anything too bad happened.

She coughed and rubbed her throat, voice raspy. "My Semblance, Mimic. I can copy whatever I've just seen."

"I.. I'm sorry for reacting that way." I shot out. "But never do that again, for your own sake. I can use the Thu'um because my soul is that of a Dovah, a dragon. Some hermits and monks could also harness this power, but it takes years of meditation to learn enough to do it without killing yourself. For someone, a normal person, to use it? How did it feel, shedding your soul from your mortal form?" I spat venomously.

She shuddered as she kept a hand on her throat. I noticed too late her knees wobble and she collapsed to the stone. She was shivering uncontrollably. "C-co-cold." Her teeth started chattering. "I-I feel e-e-empty." I rushed to her side in a heartbeat.

"W-warm…" She said, before passing right the fuck out.

I shook my head, senses dulled. We needed to get her to a healer, and fast. Fortunately Richards had already started touching down as soon as he'd seen us. I briefly noted that shots were being fired, explosions going off. It didn't seem to matter.

Pyrrha was yelling at me to get on the Bullhead, Nora was trying to get Velvet and I up. Lie Ren, calm as ever, shot countless rounds into the night. I dully noted that there were Grimm, lots of them. It didn't seem to matter.

A sharp crack, a flash of white. Ren standing in front of me. Shaking me. Another crack. "Pull your shit together!" He demanded, and I listened. My weapon was destroyed, my power had brought what was probably an irreversible condition on a poor girl who had only wanted to help. I glanced around, saw Pyrrha in combat with a pair of Ursa, Richards hanging out the back of the landed Bullhead with a large gun, firing shot after shining shot into the night.

"Juniper!" I bellowed. "Board the Bullhead, now!" I lifted myself to my feet, rabbit faunus in hand, and sprinted for the open door of the Bullhead. As soon as we were all aboard, Richards hit a button on his scroll and the aircraft launched high into the sky.

"Woohoo!" Our pilot cheered, pumping a fist. "Suck it, Grimm!"

At a lack of response, he looked around. "Why so glum, we're all fi… shit." He said, spotting Velvet unconscious in the seat next to me. "She injured? I've got medical training. I mean, it's only for humans but we really aren't that different unless her ears are infected."

My voice was low. "She's gathering her soul back in her body. If it were me, I'd have recovered by now. For a mortal… She may never recover." I paused, grit my teeth. "Shit. FUCKING SHIT!" I slammed a fist against the wall of our aircraft, careful to leave my aura off and skills unused. I felt the typical pain, the distraction I needed. Then, I felt it fade.

"FUCK!" I punched the armor again, punching when the pain faded, over and over.

Physical Endurance has levelled up!

"Damnit…" I set my jaw, took a deep breath then turned to see my team. "I'm taking responsibility for this. Ozpin wanted to make me leader, this shit is what happens."

Ren looked as if he wanted to slap me again. Divines know I'd deserve it. My fist clenched, almost daring him to do it. I stared him in his eyes.

Give me a reason.

He shook his head and sat down.

I won't.

I turned my angry gaze to Pyrrha, who returned it. "Don't look at me like that."

I bit back a savage response, instead nodding and turning my gaze to Nora.

She drew back slightly. She bit her lip. She stood. Bless her heart, she wrapped her arms around me and held me as I almost collapsed to the floor right then and there.

Marcurio…

Mjoll…

Esbern…

My wife…

My child…

And now Velvet…

Nora patted my back, then stepped back, not saying a word but I knew what she wanted to say. I could hear it, even as I collapsed into my seat helplessly.

She's still here, don't give up hope.